Blogs from Ísafjördur, Northwest, Iceland, Europe - page 2

Today we landed in Isafjordur, a small town with a population of 2,600. We booked a tour with Wild Westfjords, the Dynjandi Waterfall & The Westfjords tour. Our tour guide is a student at the University Centre of the Westfjords, he is from Sacramento, California and is getting his masters in Coastal and Marine Management. The school offers two masters programs and no bachelors. A year of school costs him double what students from Iceland or the EU pay a total of $4,000.00 per year. He has low rent around $300 per month and shares ownership of a car with his roommates. Iceland is a deal for students but all products and taxes are expensive. The people of Isafjordur are very honest, they do not lock their homes or cars. Babies are left in their strollers ... read more

An Italian out-door club coming to Iceland end of April and are doing a tour around the country before joining a ski-weekend in Isafjordur. The bus was playing tricks on us just before the tour started so had to be fixed the day before. One thing off the check-list. My driver broke his leg a week before the tour, another driver hired on the last minute – one more thing off the check-list. We, thirty five people, set off in the morning, all skis fitted into the bus and the group was hoping there would be snow somewhere in the hills on our way so they could do some walks. No snow on the southern part except the glaciers that were all white and pretty, but too far away. The first day was good, the weather ... read more

Tuesday 30th July, 2013. Isafyordur, Westfjords, Iceland. Isafjordur (population 3,000) is the largest town and regional centre of the Westfjords peninsula in the northwest corner of Iceland. It is located on a narrow sand and gravel hook-shaped spit extending out into Skutulsfjordur, an inlet of the much larger Isafjardardjup. The municipality, known as Isafjardarbaer, also includes the neighbouring villages of Hnifsdalur, Sudureyri, Flateyri and Thingeyri. The Westfjords were certainly populated at least a 1000 years ago and a small settlement existed in the 19th centrury along the shores of Skutulsfjordur. Little was known about this and other villages until the 17th century when the Westfjords achieved notoriety in Iceland with a number of witch and wizard trials - the last wizards were burnt at the stake in 1656. A trading post was well established in the ... read more

The ceiling of the turf-roofed Litlibær, or Little Farm, was so low my hair brushed against it. But when I sat down in the drawing room, sipping a hot cup of coffee and looking out the small, multi-paned window to the fjord and snow-flecked mountains beyond, I felt quite at home. I chatted with the sixteen-year old great-great grandson of the man who had built the original farm, and who now helped greet visitors from far flung corners of the globe curious to see what an old Icelandic farmhouse, built on an isolated fjord in an isolated corner of an isolated country, was like. I smiled as he explained his plans to travel the world – Canada to the US and down through Latin America, then over to South Africa and northwards; what a much more ... read more

Our days are so busy that time for blogging is little. Right now (June 19) we are at a guesthouse in the middle of nowhere near a the cliffs of Latrabjarg. The beach is shell-sand, almost white. The arctic terns nest outside our windows, the plovers can be heard, the wagtails twitter, nature and hardly anything but nature. Yesterday was full of activities. First we went to a museum on fishing in Osvor. Then to have view over Isafjordur at the old ski-restaurant, that is not in use any more after the avalanche back 1994. The holiday home area suffered from that when quite many little cottages where completely destroyed one night in April. Now for a hike up to the waterfall and the forest where you can almost get lost. Lunch is at our little ... read more